Thank YOU!

It's thankful season again! I have been wanting to do a post about things I am thankful for, but didn't want to do the traditional list of things in my life and also wanted to avoid this year's post looking like last year's. That's when I decided to make it personal. This post is dedicated to all my friends, family, and acquaintances who support me and uplift me in ways you may never know! So, Thank You Holly and Dee Dee for your never ending support and standing out in the freezing cold temperatures to help me at photo sessions. You'll never know how much I appreciate this! You put me at ease and the clients too! Thank you to Brandy, the Fidino/ Del Toro clan, Jen, Kyle, and Landon Holway, Bethany, Skye and family, the O'Neal girls and their hubbies, Alla, the Hendlers, the Parks, and the Mehlings for letting me practice my photography skills on you! Thanks for your nice compliments, even when I know some of the pictures turned out poorly. It really encourages me to keep working at it! Thank you Damon Hagel for keeping my hubby occupied when I am busy and for helping do things in our yard and around the house. You will make a great husband as well someday ;) Oh, and for your advice on my spider bite. To my old co-workers at Lourdes, although we no longer work together, I think about you all daily. About all the hard, heart breaking at times and rewarding at others, work you do! You are an important part of our community and I don't think most people know just what you guys do! I have never had a job so difficult and meaningful as being a counselor at Lourdes. It definitely takes an amazing and special person to do it! God bless you all! To All the stay at home or mostly stay at home mommies, Thank You for showing me the joy in life of raising your children and choosing to make sacrifices. For showing me there is more meaning to life than an education and a job that serves only me and my greed.  You'll never know how inspiring it is to watch mommies give up careers and the "finer" things in life to be mommies. That lets me know it's all worth it :) And your babies will know this too! Thanks for dedicating your lives to raising happy, healthy, productive members of our world! Last but not least, to my family... I love you all and do not have the time or space here to thank you for your love and support! You guys mean the world to me! Oh, and to that one guy I live with, I couldn't be more blessed to have a hubby who runs out to buy me Halloween socks, cuts a hole in a table for my costume ideas, rubs my head all the time, does all the gross house chores I don't like, will run out to get whatever I need at night, and never says a word about my Starbucks habit! Thank you Jesus for all of these things I don't deserve!

Addendum...

Bathroom faucet now not shutting off. Must have taken advice from the bathtub. So... New hardware bought and installed! PLUS, hubby decided to reseal and caulk the whole shower! Meanwhile, I spent 3.5 hours out in 40 degree weather, with the 2 best friends a girl could ask for, taking pictures of beautiful people on Saturday! I am feeling overwhelmed with all of the things I have taken on lately, behind, and on brain overload with all I have learned at work and with my photography endeavors. However, I feel incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to do things I love, to take on new challenges, to have friends and family who support me, and to be able to afford a rather expensive hobby... hopefully the hobby will pay off one day. So, as I sit here blogging  instead of photo editing late into the night, I realize I am in a warm cozy house, curled up in a blanket, my best friend close by, eating left over Olive Garden, with not a care in the world compared to how some live. I have very little to be stressed about and life ain't that bad.

Impromptu Shower Remodel-ish

A few weeks ago, when I got out of the shower, I noticed the water would not shut off. I am not talking about a little drizzle, but a steady small stream of water coming out of the faucet. I gave the handle a little jiggle and then did what anyway modern day sulf sufficient woman would do. I ran into the bedroom, where Jeremiah was still sleeping peacefully, and calmly shouted that the water wouldn't shut off and I didn't know what to do. Jeremiah came and did some "man stuff " and quickly got it shut off. He told me it was probably time to replace the faucet and handle and that he would take it off and look at it that weekend. Well, that weekend Jeremiah did just that... and a little more. The more being that he broke something on the shower handle when he took it off and could no longer put it back on. He said it was already broken and wasn't sure how it had even stayed on that long. Well, we still needed to be able to shower, so Jeremiah improvised... and oh boy do I wish I had taken a picture. What now became our mechanism of turning the water on was a carefully hammered in screw driver. I cannot even explain how he did this, but it is very funny to look back on how long we had that screw driver there. We could not find a replacement that matched the shower and the current one we had was discontinued. So that meant we had to replace everything from the faucet, to the pipes, to some of the tiles. Well, we were having our Halloween party that weekeend and did not want our bathroom tore up so we decided to wait. Luckily, no one peaked in the shower and saw the ghetto-ness... well, that we know of. Anyhoo, last weekend we finally went and picked out our new shower accessories and this week Jeremiah installed it all and is now grouting the new tile. I am so glad we have 2 bathrooms so we were still able to still shower downstairs, but it will be nice to do it upstairs where my clothes are and I won't have to go running through the house in my towel dripping wet and freezing. Oh yeah, and I have a nice new pretty shower :)

p.s. A picture will follow